Who Audits a Hockey Franchise?

Am I the crazy one here? My landlord, the local hockey franchise, bullies me, steals from me, and sabotages my business. My so-called partner, Pierre, lies to me, bullies me, and sides with my landlord against me. Yet when I object to these things, everyone acts like I’m the one who’s lost my mind. Like all these things are ok and I’m just overreacting. How can that be? Doesn’t anyone else see that this is wrong? Very Wrong!

These were all things going through my mind after that email from Pierre; the intervention last summer and then the email at Thanksgiving. The idea that Pierre was in collusion with Todd to sabotage the cafe was becoming more real. After all, Pierre used to work at corporate before we started the restaurant. Was this standard operating procedure for franchise employees and that’s why no one saw anything wrong?

Surely, a hockey franchise would have internal and external auditors. There must be billions of dollars funneling through that company, so wouldn’t they have a Big Five auditor like Deloitte or KPMG? Wouldn’t there be somebody concerned about guarding the keys to the kingdom? Or does everyone steal until they retire, so they have an auditor like Enron had with Arthur Andersen? You know if the employees were stealing from me, they were robbing the hockey franchise blind. And considering Operations and Corporate employees had master keys that opened every door in every building, there was a lot of opportunity for ill-gotten gain. Maybe to them, bringing home a little extra was just a perk of employment. Obviously, no one was telling them it was wrong. Just me, the crazy one, telling them it’s wrong. Now, what do I do???

Good Offense is the Best Defense

Many people go on the attack when they know they are wrong. Every problem in the relationship is your fault. They are completely exonerated, because none of this ever would have happened if it weren’t for your bad behavior. More specifically, Pierre never put in his seed money, wasn’t marketing the cafe, wasn’t helping mend our relationship with our landlord and stop the blatant theft, and wasn’t up on the current facts, so he attacked me to distract from the real issues. This wasn’t the first time he had lashed out at me, but it would be one of the last. At some point, you have to be realistic and see that it doesn’t matter that you are right. It’s not worth losing everything to take a stand when you are surrounded by crazy people who have the financial backing to crush you like a bug and laugh over your remains.

In November, I was shocked to find out that once again Pierre had hired Max, after all the times Kyle and I had reminded Pierre that you don’t reward someone for sabotaging you and your business. I sent Pierre a text and here is his response.

Val,
I chose not to respond to your text yesterday, because I realized it would escalate into an argument, after working almost 30 hours straight through Thanksgiving Day, I was disappointed when I received your text, I thought it was petty and another example of your inability to allow some things to settle, in this case with Max, and move on.However upon sleeping on it, I have decided to respond in a more appropriate format of e-mail. 
Your Text: 11/25/2016
“So even after Max totally betrayed you and went out of his way to hurt our business, you hired him again???”
Here are the facts, Max is working as a contract laborer for Ice Stars, to work nights building the Outdoor ice rink and making ice until 3am and 4am, HARD to find experienced people to work at 2am he is NOT an employee, even if he was, its NONE of your business.I would suggest you work on building relationships at Champions as opposed to destroying them, I guess now you want to start doing that to me.Whilst, I insist that the Ice Stars business should not be your concern, as you have no vested interest. That brings me to Champions Cafe which I do have an interest and financial stake in, while respecting your role as managing partner over the last 2 years.I have concerns about you continuing in this position, and can’t help feeling that the business may be better served with new day to day management, with someone who is energized and motivated to build the client base, and also may be more open to change, and have a more conciliatory attitude to the StarCenter staff and management, that are at the end of the day quite vital to our success. A possible candidate may be Kyle or someone with a similar temperament and personality.Unfortunately over the last 2 years, you have managed to alienate, pick battles, chastise customers and staff that are important to the success of Champions Cafe, while always playing the role of the victim in nearly every conflict.In my opinion you have a passive, aggressive personality which has led to a history of conflict at the Champions, it’s time to stop playing the victim and stop blaming everyone else including myself, and take some responsibility for the problems at Champions.I have to ask, why do we have none of our original staff working for us ? or even staff from 6 months ago ? why do we have such a high turnover of staff ? it’s a fact that the restaurant business does have high turnover, but nobody seems to want to work for you.Last week with schools on vacation all week, why did we not open the cafe for the morning public sessions ? when we were busy and had customers in the building, yet we open at 10:30am or 11am during the week when we have nobody in the building ? On that note it’s high time to sit down and give me full disclosure of our financial records, monthly sales, liabilities, true expenses, it’s my understanding that you don’t think that I deserve that courtesy as a partner in Champions Cafe because, “I haven’t worked hard enough for the business and don’t ever do anything” I guess you have different expectations of my role.As the managing partner you have a fiduciary responsibility and duty, to disclose the financials of the business, disclose our liabilities, and most importantly take inventory of assets, so we can regularly monitor our financial viability as a business.I would like to ask, when was the last time we did a full stock inventory at Champions ?If we do sit down to talk, let’s also discuss what has deteriorated into a pathetic relationship we have with the staff and management at the rink who are critical to our success, and I fear in recent weeks this situation could result in the termination of the Champions Cafe lease.Also, let discuss why we had to upset Lucas the McKinney rink Hockey Director, because you felt is was necessary to charge him 25 cents for a cup of water or ice, this escalated into you offending him to the point he never bought from us again.On a side note, I was told last week that Lucas has moved to Frisco because he has been promoted to Director of Youth Hockey for all the StarCenter rinks, and will be in charge of Youth Hockey and all youth Tournaments, so I ask was it worth 25 cents to alienate someone who could, and now can clearly help your business in the future.It’s time to have more people advocating our business, and not boycotting it because of personality conflicts.
Val, I want to reiterate, I do not want conflict, and I do not want to argue with you, it’s not productive and not in the best interests of either of us. However this exchange is long overdue and it’s important for me to relay my perspective and opinions, and I ask you to respect that, and understand that it is just that, my perspective and opinions.
I propose we meet and discuss the contents of this e-mail so we can move forward, for the best of everyone involved in Champions Cafe.
Pierre.

I’m not sure why an email is more appropriate than a text. Anybody know the finer points of these communication devices??? I don’t know why Pierre thought he had a vested interest in the cafe. His name was on some of the paperwork and he bought the coffee machine, but he never put in his seed money or worked any kind of regular hours – not even at home, setting up marketing campaigns or calling people to drum up business. Regardless, he had every right to all financial information and he is the one who told the accountant not to send monthly statements. I guess it was my fault Pierre turned off the financial reporting and never turned it back on. And if Pierre would have taken the time to stop by and talk more often, and maybe even help out, he would have known that Lucas came back in and apologized for his behavior with the promise of continued patronage. I’ve also never heard of theft referred to as ‘a personality conflict.’ But I’m sure they all get along now – the rink employees steal Pierre blind and he uses it as a tax write-off. Everyone loves you when you give them free access to your bar and restaurant. Who knows how many underage adolescents Pierre is supplying with free alcohol.

I never said any of this to Pierre, because I don’t like to argue and people who take this stand won’t be listening to anything you say so what’s the point of talking? When people say they don’t want to argue, all they’re really saying is they are going to express their opinion but have no interest in hearing yours. I didn’t respond right away because so many things were going through my mind and I wanted to let it soak in first. I waited a few days and replied with my express desire for him to buy me out. Clearly, theft and intimidation were ok with him and I needed to get out before I lost one more penny in this business.

Continuing Threats and Coverups

Some of the corporate employees had kids who played hockey at our rink. While I really wanted to discuss our issues with corporate and the rink employees, I tried to be respectful of their family time at the rink. I don’t know why I wanted to be respectful of them when they were so clearly disrespectful of us. I guess I still had hope that if we did the right thing and treated people well, eventually they would do the same for us. Now I just feel stupid for respecting our landlord and all the rink employees.

One night, Damon was at the rink with his kid(s). I didn’t want to discuss work problems during his family time, so I asked him to call me when he had time. He asked what I wanted so I pulled out a picture of one of the rink employees in our cafe early in the morning before we opened for the day. He excused the employee’s actions using the same words Todd had used so I knew they had talked and were prepared to defend the rink employee. So I invited Damon into the kitchen and showed him the employee was nowhere near the ice machine in the picture. Damon works at the corporate level, so now the theft cover up goes all the way to corporate. Then the threats began. Damon explained that they had installed new TVs in the bar and they could take them out if we weren’t feeling grateful. What? Is he saying we should be grateful they were updating all the rinks and just let their employees steal from us with no complaints? Now, I’ve been threatened by Todd AND Damon. Is that how hockey franchises work? They just take what they want and lay waste the rest of the world?

At one point in this conversation Damon said, “What do you want from me?” I bet every one of you reading this blog can answer that question. So, why can’t Damon??? Was he not listening all those times I talked to and emailed him and Todd??? I want the employees of a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to stop stealing from me, a senior citizen investing her retirement money. I want the employees of a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to abide by our contract, including staying out of our space when we are not there. I want a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to fix their security cameras and protect our assets. I want the employees of a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to stop harassing us and treat us with the respect we give them. I want my organization and my landlord’s organization to be mutually supportive of eachother’s success. Apparently, I want too much.

Ice Rinks Need a Playground

I’ve touched on this several times. Ice rinks are a family place, but not everyone in the family skates. Siblings of skaters run madly about the lobby and ice rink, wreaking havoc where ever they go. They lock all the bathroom doors, stick their fingers in the spigots of the water fountains and coffee machines, leave clothing strewn throughout the building, spill food and drinks all over the floor, break anything that can be broken, steal things off the snack bar counter and front desk, open all the sugars and creamers, throw stuff at the tv screens, and scream as loudly as they can. Not because they’re mean, just because they’re bored. Many siblings don’t skate and have nothing to do for hours.

It’s not so bad during the day, when more adults are working in the building. At night when the young bucks are in charge, all hell breaks loose. The nighttime rink employees sit behind the front desk with their chairs facing away from the lobby, collecting a paycheck for doing nothing.

I suggested a fenced, outdoor playground several times. I doubt Todd even considered it or passed the suggestion to corporate management. A playground would have solved many issues and given kids a creative way to burn energy. A few rinks tried setting up a little floor hockey area, but that didn’t go well and was soon dropped. The best way to keep kids out of trouble is to give them options. McDonalds learned this early on. Take note, hockey franchise.

The Women of the Arena were Terrific

I’ve touched on this before, but I wanted to talk about it in more detail. The arena was our landlord. They employed quite a few men, but there were a few women at the front desk and in charge of the figure skating programs. A couple of the women were a little grumpy, but for the most part all of them were nice and treated us with respect.

I feel confident in saying the women didn’t steal from us. When we asked for the arena employees to stop getting ice when we were closed, the women started bringing their bowl to us so we could fill it with ice. The men were the ones who still came when we were closed so they could continue to contaminate the ice and steal from us.

When our trays had disappeared, the women were the ones who returned them to us. Most of our customers would return our trays when they finished eating, but some would leave them at various places around the arena. Before we started making rules to stop the theft, arena employees would bring us trays they found as they were working. After the young men got angry that we reported theft to the police, the trays started to disappear. A box of 25 trays costs over $100 and we were struggling as it was, so it was frustrating to have to buy more boxes of trays. Every day, we would go over to the front desk to see if they had found any trays or to let them know we were looking for missing ones. We would walk around the arena searching and sometimes we would find one. But eventually we would get down to less than 10 and have to buy another box. One day, one of the ladies came over with a big stack of trays she had found on top of the Lost and Found cabinet. It’s my belief the guys were mad and so they put our trays up there to hide them from us but no one could say they stole them. Still the trays continued to disappear and we would have to buy more. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys were using them as hockey pucks until they broke and were thrown away.

If it weren’t for the women, there would be no redeeming value to the McKinney arena employees at all. I am so grateful they were there. Now you know why I think the women were honest and supportive. Girls rule! And in this case, boys are stool.

Why Am I Telling You This?

After reading through my blog, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this. My hope is that it will inspire you to think past Murphy’s Law and be prepared for anything. So many horrible, unforeseen things happened with my restaurant and I don’t want that to be your experience. If I save even one person by helping them see a red flag before they sign their first contract, I will be thrilled. And it will make all my tears and embarrassment fall a little softer.

Sometimes the smallest thing can be the most inconvenient. Dr Pepper was a sponsor. Their name was on the side of the building and in the arena name and logo. So we were required to sell Dr Pepper products. I can’t tell you how many people got angry because we didn’t have Diet Coke. Even when I reminded them it was a Dr Pepper arena, they didn’t get it. Other people just said “duh”. And even though Dr Pepper expected us to comply, they didn’t take care of us. You’d think they would want to look good to the public when their name was on the building, but they did nothing to help us. We didn’t even get a good break on cost. We were supposed to use their styrofoam cups, but it got to the point where they let us run out all the time. We would order cups every week and they wouldn’t send any. Or they would send cups but no lids. So I finally started ordering plain cups from Sysco. You can’t sell fountain drinks without cups and when you ordered something from Sysco, you got it. The only problem we had with Sysco was sometimes they would send expired products. They didn’t have a very good system for rotating or return-to-vendor or something. So we had to look carefully when we checked in our orders.

Before you start a business, make sure you look at each piece and think of a backup plan if that piece doesn’t go as expected. Watch for red flags as you proceed. Make sure you have plenty of cash. Have a bailout plan. Talk to as many people as possible in as much detail as possible. Be prepared and knock ’em dead.

Drinking Alcohol in a Public Place

The City of McKinney owns the building and property where the McKinney rink resides. So we were always aware of being on publicly owned property rather than private property. The local hockey team leased the property from the City and we subleased our space from the local hockey team.

There are laws preventing the consumption of alcohol in public places. While many exceptions to the laws exist, the McKinney arena was not in one of the ‘excepted’ areas. So the adult hockey leagues could not legally drink alcohol in the parking lot. Since our liquor license didn’t cover the entire building, they couldn’t legally drink in the lobby or locker rooms either. The only place they could legally drink was in our bar.

You’d think that would be good for business. However Todd, our self-proclaimed food service expert, refused to enforce the law. To our faces, he said he wouldn’t allow people to break the law and he said he would help us be successful, but behind the scenes he was sabotaging our very existence. We could lose our liquor license if TABC came in and found alcohol in the locker rooms. Yet, Todd and Pierre did nothing.

The front desk was supposed to enforce ‘no alcohol’, but adult leagues brought in big coolers of beer and alcohol. Conveniently, the rink employees didn’t notice the coolers. So I started contacting Todd every time I saw a cooler come in, regardless of time of day. Still the employees let the coolers go right into the locker rooms. They also refused to enforce ‘no consumption of alcohol’ in the parking lot. So we had to start calling the police to break up the tailgate parties, making us the bad guys. We didn’t tell anyone we were calling the cops, but some adults figured it out and decided to boycott our bar. I guess we really didn’t lose anything since they weren’t drinking with us before, but still, this wasn’t the kind of business or relationships we wanted to build. It was a horrible situation.

Turns out Todd, the man who repeatedly said he was going to help us be successful, only made a big deal about the City owning our building when he thought he could hurt our business. If enforcing the law would help our business, Todd and his people were not the least bit interested in honoring our commitment to preserving the sanctity of public property. And once again, Pierre did nothing. As a former employee of the local hockey team, Pierre certainly had a lot more clout than the rest of us and could bring these issues to the surface to be resolved.

My Biggest Mistake

I violated the cardinal rule of business, never start a business in an area you have no experience. If I had worked in the restaurant business previously, I might have recognized Todd was blowing smoke a lot sooner, maybe even before we signed the contract.

Every time we talked to Todd, he mentioned he would set us up with all the adult teams so we could offer locker room setups of pizza and beer when they played. Robbie was young so he probably didn’t know that was BS, but Pierre had been involved with the local rinks for years and should have known this wasn’t possible without planning ahead.

Here’s how it works in Texas. When you apply for your liquor license you have to supply a diagram of the space governed by the liquor license. Todd gave me a diagram of the snack bar and bar, which included a partial diagram of the lobby. To license the entire building, including the locker rooms, we would have had to provide a diagram of the entire building. Pierre could have gotten a diagram of the building when he worked for corporate. I’m sure he knew we needed it because he drinks and you have to stay in certain areas of the building when you drink alcohol. It is against the law to serve alcohol outside of the licensed area. At the very least Pierre should have said something when Todd was telling us we could provide liquor in the locker rooms. I had no idea you couldn’t walk around the rink with your beer.

You can’t see the rinks very well from the bar in the McKinney arena. That’s why we wanted to put a camera in each rink and hook up to TVs in the bar. Parents like to watch their kids practice and play and we like to sell alcohol. If I had known Todd wasn’t going to allow us to put in cameras, I would have at least licensed the tables next to the snack bar in the lobby. That way parents could sit at the tables and watch one of the rinks.

This whole thing was one giant mistake. I broke the cardinal rule, I believed Todd when he said he was going to help us, and I trusted Pierre to lend his knowledge and expertise to guide our business to success. Pierre was the skating expert and he said nothing to let us know Todd was leading us astray.

SHARK!

I hear ‘Jaws’ music every time I see that word. But for now, I’m talking about the San Jose Sharks. I’ve been to Shark Stadium a few times when I volunteered to work at the United States Figure Skating Championships. So when Damon suggested we call them for advice, Kyle and I jumped on it. Damon said the Sharks had a full-time restaurant in their stadium and it did well.

Since Kyle was an experienced bartender, we decided he should be the one to call. Whomever he spoke to at Shark Stadium was happy to help us and gave Kyle all the advice he could think of. Far more helpful than Todd, Damon, and the rest of our local hockey team landlords. You know what the Sharks didn’t say? They didn’t say we should fry our French fries to be successful. That’s right, Todd, Mr. Self-Proclaimed Food Service Expert who lets his employees contaminate our ice and steal from us, the successful Sharks did not validate your advice.

So what was the first thing the Sharks said??? You must have a ‘no outside food or drink’ policy in the arena. Of course that’s what they said. We’ve been saying that all along – it didn’t take us long to figure that out and now we had validation. But to no avail. Todd and Damon were determined to avoid helping us in any way. Everything Kyle learned from the Sharks involved help from our landlord to which Todd and Damon said ‘no’. The good news was the Sharks had no criticisms of our restaurant and bar setup and handling. The bad news was our best avenues to success were completely blocked by our landlord.

Where is Jon Taffer When You Need Him?

Honestly, I needed someone with a big presence to stand up for me. Someone with a strong sense of right and wrong. Someone to look these guys straight in the eye and let them know stealing will not be tolerated. Someone Todd cannot threaten or intimidate. Someone who will say what needs to be said and not back down. So, I applied to Bar Rescue.

Obviously I needed help with these relationships, but we also needed help with our bar. We needed outside help to design a concept that would draw the neighborhood into our bar. We needed a plan to bring business and club meetings into our restaurant and a schedule to push Pierre to do his self-proclaimed marketing job.

But help did not come. A white knight on a silvery white horse did not gallop in and rescue me. Superman did not swoop in and fly me to safety. Holy shots in the dark, Batman and Robin did not repel down from the roof to fight off Todd and Damon. The Force was not strong in this one and the stars swallowed her up and spit her out.